Latest / The History of Belgium: A Small Country with a Giant Colonial Legacy — Fexingo History
Belgium's Congo: The Art of Colonial Extraction
This episode moves beyond the well-trodden paths of rubber quotas and administrative taxes to examine the material culture of Belgian colonialism in the Congo Free State. We explore how Paul du Bois, a pioneering ethnographer and museum curator, transformed looted cultural artifacts into scientific instruments of imperial control. By analyzing the collection methods at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, we uncover how objects like ceremonial masks and royal regalia were stripped from their sacred contexts to serve European narratives of 'civilizing' missions. The…
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